SPRING BREAK!
I have a whole week off, as do many other people, giving me time to think of new ideas for new chapters. Looks like I forgot to mention something: YES! This is a sequel for Tiamat!
Chapter 2
Changing Time
In the blink of an eye, eleven months have gone by. A paw can be seen putting quill to paper.
It's been almost a year, hasn't it? If you were still here, you'd probably look like an eleven year old by now.
Peace doesn't come without a price. And you were the payment. Maybe your life was too little...or maybe it was more than what was demanded. We'll never know the answer, will we? Perhaps it was the former. People have been abducted left and right. Everyone suspects it to be Bosco's doing. After all, they kidnap more people than their citizens earn money.
"Look at this!" A feminine hand slammed the request paper down on the table, a fingernail tapping the headline.
At another table, the split-tailed Exceed, Vóreia, looked up from her journal, snapping it shut. The lock clicked into place as she flew over.
"Three people in one night?" Beth cried, reading the paper carefully. "In Iceberg?"
"Iceberg?" At the name of the country, the Exceed pushed past her guild mates to stand next to the paper, using her quill as a guide for the words. "A girl, a baby boy, and a grown man: all three disappeared at the same time, same day, but in different places," Vóreia murmured. "'Ransoms have not been offered by the abductors, for we have no idea of their current whereabouts.'"
"But how the hell are you supposed to find three skilled kidnappers?" Arania fumed.
"'These request papers will update themselves when new information regarding the kidnappers have been found,'" Risley read off, using her slim index finger as a guide when Vóreia lifted her feather.
"I'm telling you, it's those assholes from Bosco," Arania snapped. Ever since her guild mate's death, she developed a tongue that swore unnecessarily. "Last week, they almost kidnapped Millianna and Kagura."
"Yeah, but they seriously underestimated the two," Risley chuckled.
Shaking her head, Vóreia flew back to her table, popping the lock on her journal open. Taking her quill and dipping it into an ink bottle, she put the tip to the page where she left off.
Things have really changed since you left. Personalities have undergone drastic transformations. Not to mention appearances. Arania is swearing a lot, Risley lost weight...and them?
Three mages hit the wall roughly, bloody and bruised. A hand constricted around a fourth man's neck, causing him to turn purple.
"Really, Sting?" Rogue raised an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed and ticked off. "These are dark mages of Tartaros? These pathetic insults?" he snarled, subconsciously tightening his hold on the dark mage's neck.
"Wait, Rogue! We can't get the reward if you kill one of them!" Sting sweated nervously at the release of his best friend's inner beast. Or was that inner dragon? "Let that guy go, I'll tie them up!"
Glancing at the mage with disgust, Rogue dropped him on the ground, kicking his ribs as he walked away.
"What? I'm supposed to haul them to the authorities myself?" Sting yelled.
He should have kept his big mouth shut.
Rogue looked back at his partner, crimson eyes glaring harshly at the White Dragon Slayer. Sting knew that look all too well. It was only reserved for people he wanted dead.
"N-never mind!" Sting stammered. His partner turned away, walking out of sight. When he was no longer visible, the Dragon Slayer sighed in relief. "That was close," he muttered, pulling the rope tightly around the mages.
"Wait, Rogue!" Frosch cried, ready to fly after his best friend.
"Frosch." Lector pounded a fist against Frosch's head—at least, the head of the costume. "Let him cool off."
Frosch hung his head. "Fro wants Rogue to be normal again."
"We do, too," Sting said, hauling the unconscious mages towards the direction where Rogue left. "Do you know how many times I've gotten nightmares of him murdering me?"
"He's been like that since last July," Lector pointed out. A chamomile flower growing nearby caught his attention, and the red-furred Exceed picked it. "She likes me, she likes me not..." he mumbled as he picked the petals off one at a time. Sting was amused by his best friend's antics.
"Fro wishes Mermaid-san was alive, don't you, Sting?"
Sting halted, shocked that the froggy Exceed would have the guts to say that. Lector didn't seem to notice. He simply walked past Sting and Frosch muttering, "She likes me, she likes me not..." Somehow, he ran into a tree, but Lector took a few steps back and began to walk up the trunk of the tree.
True, there were times when he wished she was alive.
She.
Her.
Glacia Patin.
A white-haired, blue-eyed ten-year old girl who somehow caught Rogue's eye. Back then, Sting was certain it was only because she was a Dragon Slayer. The Ice Dragon Slayer, at that.
But since her death...Sting grew convinced that Rogue had liked her. Proof? Ever since July, he's been violent and callous. The Shadow Dragon Slayer became the second best fighter in Sabertooth. And when a mage last week drank so much beer he insulted her, the guy was put in the infirmary for the remainder of the month. Compliments of Rogue Cheney.
"She likes me—" Lector froze, and for a moment, Sting thought that his Exceed friend noticed that he had climbed a tree. But then Lector began to bawl.
"Lector, what's wrong?" Sting rushed to grab his cat from the tree when he saw the plucked flower in his paw.
One petal left.
"She hates me!" Lector sniffed.
"Lector...don't bet everything on a dumb flower."
"Huh?"
Sting grabbed Lector from the tree branch, setting him on the ground as the White Dragon Slayer knelt down. "So what if the flower says she hates you? That doesn't mean that you can't make her like you," he said. Anything to cheer up his Exceed.
"Fro thinks Sting's right," Frosch agreed.
"Of course Sting-kun's right!" Lector quickly switched back to his normal self, scolding Frosch. "He's never wrong about a thing!"
If only Rogue could do that, Sting thought. "Now who's the lucky cat lady, Lector?"
"P-choo!" Vóreia wiped her nose with a tissue.
"Bless you!" A female mage shouted.
Nodding in acknowledgement, Vóreia got back to her journal.
Last I heard from Lector, Rogue's personality had fallen into darkness. He's rude, sadistic, callous—he's become just like the rest of the people in his guild.
Some new faces appeared at the guild over the past months. I barely paid attention to them, so pardon my rudeness. But I can name one who is hard to forget. If you're watching over me...I think you would know.
"Hey, listen up, ladies!"
All female heads turned in the direction of the bar, where a green-haired woman stood. Master Avia.
"The Grand Magic Games are next week!" Avia announced. "I know last year's games didn't leave good memories for us." She glanced in the direction of Vóreia, who now slumped her head with depression clouds over her. "But we're going to work extra hard this year! I'll reveal this year's representatives for our guild."
The ladies of Mermaid Heel listened the sound of their own breathing, waiting for Avia to say someone's name. Anyone's.
"Kagura!"
As expected, Vóreia thought.
"Millianna!"
"Me-ow~!" The cat mage squealed.
"Beth! Arania!"
"Feels just like last year," Beth said.
"Our last contender..."
"The Grand Magic Games? Again?"
The team had already been chosen: the same members from last year.
"I couldn't care less," Rogue said simply, walking away from the rest of the team.
Once his back disappeared out the door, Sting, Rufus, and Orga relaxed considerably.
"What happened to that guy? He's a living time bomb now!" Orga set his feet on the coffee table. Doing so prompted Rufus to swipe his teacup away from the man's foot. "Can't say anything around him without worrying for my life!"
"My thoughts are the same." The Memory-Make wizard sipped his tea while watching the door carefully, as if expecting Rogue to march in. "He's become quite hot-headed."
"What? I demand you tell me their name!"
The remainder of Team Sabertooth glanced at Minerva, who was currently facing the Commmunication Lacrima.
"How dare they hang up?" Minerva stormed back to the lounge. "Crocus Gardens has already been reserved," she fumed.
"By who?" Rufus asked curiously.
"The name was never given," Minerva snapped.
Life doesn't stop for anyone. I always thought that if you died, the world would stop. In actuality...no one is needed. We're so small and insignificant...that life continues on as if nothing happened. But even if life doesn't need us...there were people who needed you. Always...forever.
—Vóreia Polaris
Vóreia couldn't help but smile when she spelled out her full name. That was the name Glacia had given her when she hatched. When her partner had been five.
Closing her journal, Vóreia flew over to the bookshelf, sliding it in with other books and novels. Sighing sadly to herself, she flew back to the bed she once shared with Glacia.
P.s.—Did I mention how scary Platina is?